hip-18339

Its story

In Eridanus —the long celestial river snaking south from Orion— shines a white A-type variable star. Its light has been travelling some one hundred sixty years: it set out in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, when railways were laying their first lines across Europe. Hotter and more luminous than the Sun, its brightness is not constant: it oscillates to a subtle rhythm. A Victorian flame pulsing in the bed of the great stellar river.